


from the earth it broke through

by justsleepwalkin



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Crisis of Faith, Episode Related, Episode: s02e65 Chases and Trees, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Mighty Nein as Family, Self-Doubt, Spoilers, mindscape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 20:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19092121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsleepwalkin/pseuds/justsleepwalkin
Summary: At the edge of the Barbed Fields, Fjord loses consciousness.At the edge of the Barbed Fields, the wind whispers insistently to Caduceusfollowand tugs him towards sleep. He follows.





	from the earth it broke through

**Author's Note:**

> eyyy I finished the episode last night and instantly (while trapped at work) wanted to write something like this, so here we are. I haven't written anything for campaign 2 yet, so that's cool, and also this is my 50th fic posted on AO3, so that's also cool. 
> 
>  
> 
> As I walked up my shadow  
> Thinking you'd never follow  
> From the earth it broke through  
> I know I found you  
> –I Know You'll Follow by Snorri Hallgrímsson  
> ([♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOUAIUeKaFU))

At the edge of the Barbed Fields, Fjord loses consciousness.

At the edge of the Barbed Fields, the wind whispers insistently to Caduceus _follow_ and tugs him towards sleep. He follows.

* * *

Fjord expects to be drowning. He expects the cold, bracketing waters suffocating his lungs, clawing tight at his throat.

It's still cold. There's a slicing wind and the only water is the rain. He's back in the Barbed Fields, the desolate land stretching out around him. He knows something is wrong, but it's a relief for just a moment. This could be something else, he thinks as he puts a hand over his chest, and he doesn't feel any pulse from the piece of Uk'otoa within him. Something is wrong and everyone could be in danger but even so, he breathes a little easier. 

He walks, trying to get his bearings, but none of the landmarks they've come across are around him, and the fog left behind from the rain is thickening on the horizon, shrouding his vision. No party, no moorbounders. He calls out, loudly despite the danger in it, but his voice doesn't travel as far as he would have expected it to. His nerves are finding him again. The rain collects in thick puddles, and something causes him to pause, paranoia grinding his feet into the ground, and he finds a sudden fear in himself as he looks down out of the corner of his eye at the growing mass of water. It ripples from the rain. He laughs at his own unease. Then, filling the full space of the puddle, piercing deadly yellow opens and he scrambles away. All around him the puddles blink open and a yell catches in his throat. 

“ _PUNISH_ ,” the single word roars and echoes on the dead air. 

Terror is like a knife at his throat and he twists about, finding no escape, and the rain starts to _hurt_ , frostburn to his exposed skin. He thinks _no, no, no_ and tries to speak the mantra but he has no voice.

Water seeps along the ground, more eyes, warning and anger and whispered words that he can't catch, can't even decipher. His chest hurts now, far too familiar to him, and he loses his footing from the pain alone and falls to a knee, staring into one angry eye. 

“ _SUCCUMB_.”

No. _NO_. 

The water recedes from around him, buffeted by a sudden growth of grass and flowers, wild and unruly, his shadow full of life. The wind is warm. He feels:

“ _Believe_.” 

And it's contrast is so startling that he clenches his eyes closed even as he hears the water churn and boil around him, waiting for his strength to fade. And maybe he's begging, but he thinks about the woman in his dream and her familiar feel, about her verdant doorway, and Uk'otoa's raging voice becomes distorted, and then distant, and when Fjord opens his eyes he's in a forest that he doesn't recognize.

* * *

There's no rain here. No water, no eyes to watch him from their shadowed corners as Fjord pushes through the forest. He's come across several spires of coiled rock, reminding him too much of the Barbed Fields, but nothing else is similar until he comes across the giant tortoise shell, nearly unrecognizable with the field of moss and mushrooms that coat over one side of it. He stares for longer than is probably necessary, ogling the massive shape, and maybe he's too tired from their journey across the Fields, but really, what the _hell_.

“Look, I don't know if this is some kind of test or something,” he says aloud, and is surprised that he has his voice again. Uk'otoa made damn sure he couldn't speak back. But Uk'otoa isn't here, Fjord reminds himself—pleads with himself that it's true. He doesn't think he'll survive another near-encounter with the beast, and this time it wasn't even a dream. This time he'd been wide-awake, and his chest was bursting with fire and ice and he was paralyzed by his patron's very _rage_ until he was dragged down and forced into the confrontation. 

He'd known he was running out of time. He'd known Uk'otoa would come for him again, and soon. He'd known that warmth and lightness that came with his spells, that protection of Life, wouldn't last. 

And yet it's still there when he finds himself summoning his falchion on instinct, turning around to a loud sound crashing through the trees. There's a slow meander of beetles, and then—

“Caduceus?” he rumbles, alarmed and gripping his sword tighter. 

“There you are,” Caduceus answers, smiling. “Sorry it took so long to find you.”

“And how _exactly_ did you do that?” Fjord asks, not bothering to hide his suspicion. 

“The Wildmother,” Caduceus says, “she sent me.”

Fjord wavers, uncertain. He thinks of the bloom at his back, pushing away the water. 

“I think she tried to get to you before—ah—he did. Bring you out of the sea.” Caduceus nods to the giant shell. “But she didn't quite make it. He influenced what he could of the shift, I assume.” 

The rain, the water, the cold, the ice. 

Fjord swallows tightly. “S-So this... all this... is her?” 

“Seems like it'd be. It's certainly not your eyed friend, right?” 

No. No it's not. 

“I think she wants something from me, Cad,” Fjord says, and he's terrified in a different way than he was with Uk'otoa. He drops his hand and releases the summoned falchion. It vanishes with a trail of autumn leaves. “I think she wants something and I don't think I'm the person to give it.” 

Caduceus tilts his head. “Now, that doesn't seem right. Do you doubt your own strength?” 

Fjord laughs, and turns away, running a hand over his head. “You and Jester, you both got this faith thing down. Yasha and me? Feels like we didn't get much choice, and neither of us are good at it.”

“Faith isn't about being 'good' at it.” 

“She needs me to though—she—this isn't the first time,” he manages. “She saved me from him, already, once.” A quick glance at Caduceus and his friend doesn't seem surprised, but there's interest there. “I didn't... really realize it was _her_ at the time, but... without having faith, I don't think she can protect me—and I don't—how am I supposed to...” 

The forest around them, vibrant and alive, starts to wither at its edges. The sounds of wildlife go silent, and the air chilled once more. The spires of the familiar Barbed Fields peak out from the dying lands. 

“Fjord,” Caduceus interrupts. “Your patron—he _takes_ from you. He makes you feel weak so that you have no choice but to rely on him. I'm not one to tell anyone or anything how to operate but that... that just seems wrong to me.”

Fjord has a hand on his chest again just as a reaction. He's breathing harder. He thinks he can hear Uk'otoa in the back of his head, and he struggles to focus on Caduceus's voice. 

A few droplets of rain begin to hit. Caduceus frowns deeply, staring up at the sky, then over at the continued consumed forest. 

“You wanted a counteragent,” Caduceus says, trying to reclaim Fjord's attention. “And she's reached out to you—she wouldn't do that if she didn't believe in you. My family wasn't like that. What's happening with you, it's different than my destiny. And I know you're afraid of making a choice, and I know it's hard—but something like this shouldn't be easy.” 

“I don't think I can, Caduceus,” Fjord murmurs, fingers digging in deep. “I'm not strong enough.” 

“You don't have to be,” Caduceus answers. He steps forward, holding up a palm and beckons one of his beetles to land, then casts Light on the insect. The Wildmother's warmth fills his spell. He walks further, holding the beetle aloft as though in offering. The sputtering rain doesn't touch them now.

“You have all of us—it's not a solo-act, what you're doing, what you need to do.”

“I don't _know_ what I need to do,” Fjord snaps, gaze jerking up to find Caduceus's. He thinks of Caleb, sitting in his room, waiting for him to come back. Remembers resentment. It feels like he never has the time he wants, never is allowed to settle into something he _wants_ to be. He keeps trying to build himself up into _something_ and it always, _always_ slips through his fingers. “I barely even know who I am, Caduceus.”

“You're our friend,” Caduceus says simply. “You're our family. You don't have to be more than that. A lot of us, I think we're figuring out what we're doing and who we are—even me. Paths change and divert all the time, and sometimes you have to find an alternate route. That's why you travel with a group.” 

Fjord finds himself laughing, a cracked sound, but the vicegrip on his chest starts to ease, and he thinks it's only phantom pains that he feels. “How do you do that, Caduceus?” he asks. 

Caduceus blinks. “Do what?” 

“Just say what people need to hear.”

“Well,” Caduceus starts. A glance to the sky and he can see the rain's stopped again. His grin is fleeting. “I _am_ more accustomed to calming those grieving for their lost ones.”

This time, Fjord's laugh is relaxed. Caduceus can hear the thrum of insects in the woods again, unique birdsong. The forest is strong, influenced by Fjord. 

“I don't... she wanted me to believe, I guess,” Fjord says. “It's all new. It doesn't give me a lot to work on.”

Caduceus bobs his hand with the Light Beetle in it, nodding. “I think first you have to accept. It's a choice of yours, remember?” 

Cautious, Fjord holds up a palm of his own. Caduceus smiles, and tosses the beetle up into the air. It flutters side to side to orient itself, and then lands smoothly in Fjord's palm. 

Any remainder of Uk'otoa's whispers flee from his mind. He feels unseen arms wrap warmly around him from behind, his breathing easier. Her thoughts flow to him in a way that he can understand: “ _Protect mine, and I will protect you. Nature is tempestuous, as you are aware; do not fear it, find harmony in it. Your path is your own—but your power, your power I give._ ”

As she pulls away he feels Uk'otoa's core in his chest _writhe_ , fighting against something internally and he lurches, reaching out to Caduceus, the yellow glow from his chest filling his vision and he clenches down his teeth in agony, but then there are verdant-glowing vines wrapping along his arms, and they seep into his chest, ephemeral. He sags, Caduceus gripping his shoulders worriedly, and the glow snuffs out and he's left with one more feeling in his mind from the Wildmother. 

He breathes out, ragged. 

“You okay, Fjord?” Caduceus asks, still holding firm.

“I think,” Fjord says, “I'm going to be.”

For the first time since he went under, he sees the Arbor Exemplar in the distance, the Mother's stalwart seed, risen up and glorious. The Barbed Fields once again blossoms to full life around it and Fjord is invigorated in a way that he doesn't think he's ever felt before. 

“He's going to keep coming for me, Cad. 'long as I have this thing in me, he'll want me.”

“You're safe, and you're never alone. Her warmth won't fade from you, her embrace won't falter, and I've never turned away from you—I will keep you on your path, and you and I will walk together.”

“Thank you,” Fjord says. “For coming in after me. I don't think you had to.”

“I didn't, but I wasn't going to hesitate. Whenever you need. For you, and for any of them.”

* * *

They wake, slow, sluggish, sore. But... good. They push up, Fjord leaning his shoulder into Caduceus's side.

The image of the flourishing Barbed Fields transposes over their vision of the present, bleak sight, before it fades and leaves only the memory. Fjord wonders if the place the Wildmother had pulled him to, out of Uk'otoa's grasp, was a dream of hers; the hope for the future. The rain from the storm that had been following them for their travels is finally starting to break, but it doesn't chill Fjord or spark him with the fear that it did while he was under. 

His vision fills with Jester, her hands sealing over his face and worry wild in her eyes. “You're _awake_!” she shouts. “What _happened_? I tried _a lot_ of spells but I couldn't get either of you to wake up—we were so worried, Fjord!”

“Sorry, Jessie,” Fjord says, voice muffled by her hands still squishing his face. “My patron had words with me, but it's okay now.” He waves up a hand to call her off him and she eventually peels away. He summons the falchion into his hand with a certainty that surprises himself. Nott peers around Jester's leg, Caleb over her shoulder, Yasha and Beau further back but still watching. The familiar eye is still on the hilt, but twisted and knotted around it is vines, tight and suppressing. 

Caduceus looks down and smiles brightly at the sight. “Now, that's something,” he says airily. 

“Wow, did you eat too many seeds or something?” Nott asks. 

“Ohhh no,” Jester cries, “we've really got to watch what goes into you, Fjord!”

Beau snickers from her spot. 

Fjord splutters. “That's not—you know I just went through a very trying time and y'all gotta go and be like this—”

“But you're laughing,” Caduceus says, “doesn't that feel nice?”

“It—that's not the point!” 

“I do find it fascinating,” Caleb pipes in. “But, eh, maybe we can talk more when we're bedded down and sheltered. You didn't particularly pick a good place to pass out.”

“Trust me, I didn't do it on _purpose_ ,” Fjord growls.

“I don't think anyone passes out on purpose,” Yasha says. 

“Alright, alright,” Fjord says. He uses Caduceus as support to climb to his feet. The moorbounders attention leave him, and he only realizes _then_ that they were likely watching his unconscious body far too keenly. Maybe it's time to get them a meal. “Let's get a move on.”

“Are you sure you both are alright?” Jester asks quietly.

Fjord smiles. “Uk'otoa's gonna be pissed and throw a mad tantrum at some point I'm sure, but his power doesn't feed me anymore, so he's got—” He pauses, because it's too close to admitting something that he doesn't want them to know. “—Nothing to hold over me.” And he's sure Caleb, at least, picks up on the wording to file away later, but maybe that's okay. “I think I gotta figure out how some things work for me now, but I got all you guys to help me out.”

“That's right,” Yasha agrees. 

He glances over at Caduceus, his smile holding strong. “That's why we travel with a group,” he murmurs.

**Author's Note:**

> I mean it's currently canon compliant.


End file.
